More than a Degree: My Path to Success in Sport Management

The First Year of My Undergraduate Degree in NYC

COVID-19 shut down the world on my 18th birthday, March 13, during my senior year of high school. I graduated in the driveway of my childhood home, and my college experience began shortly after. Virtual orientations and meetings with my first-year adviser, figuring out how to look up my professors on  Rate My Professors, getting ready to hopefully move into my first dorm room, and reading books that I had anticipated would brace me for all the college experiences to come were among my preparations that summer in lockdown. 

When I sat down in my first college class, Current Issues in Sports, I knew that I had made the right choices leading up to that day: choosing St. John’s on Decision Day, making New York my home for the foreseeable future, and electing to major in Sports Management. Immediately, I fell in love with learning about the industry in which I wanted to spend my life. 

Uncovering My Passion and Sport Management Career 

I was raised to be a determined and competitive athlete and an academically ambitious student starting at an exceptionally young age. Both had become a part of my nature by the time I was 18 years old; however, when COVID-19, a history of injuries, and a lack of passion stripped the sport of basketball away from me, I needed to find an alternative outlet for my competitiveness. Because I found my new passion in learning about sports, academics quickly became that outlet for competition. When coupled with my academic ambition, I decided after my first semester that I would try to try to beat the “norm” and graduate in three years. 

The summer following my first year, I was a full-time student completing 12 credits of coursework. This launched me a semester ahead of when I initially anticipated to graduate. The following summer, I did the same thing. Doing this and taking one 18-credit fall semester put me on track to accomplish my goal of a three-year undergraduate career. While I was incredibly focused on my academics, I was also desperate to gain experience in the world of sports and involve myself in as much of the college experience as I could post-COVID. 

Life-Changing Experiences: Studying Abroad and a Sport Management Internship

After my first summer, I was lucky enough to accomplish both goals in my second year, working as a student manager for the St. John’s Women's Volleyball team in the first semester and studying abroad in the second. Both were life-changing experiences. I found my desire for a future career in team and game operations and was also able to travel to eight countries all over Europe just months after the season concluded. 

I knew the Division of Sport Management offered a Fast Track Option that allowed students to take 12 graduate-level credits over the course of their final two years of undergraduate studies, which provided the opportunity to acquire a graduate degree in just one year. By the end of my third semester, I knew I wanted to earn my master’s degree, and the fast-track option sounded like a great idea. However, when I applied while studying abroad, I was advised that taking the 12 required graduate credits over my final two semesters was not recommended. After many calls and emails with professors, advisers, and chairpersons, my academic dedication was clear. I was accepted into the program while studying in Europe. 

From a Challenging Semester to a Diploma in Sport Management in Hand

After studying abroad, my second full-time student summer came and went, and in Fall 2022, I began taking six credits of graduate-level Sport Management courses. This was also the semester I completed 18 credits and was the (only) Manager of the Women’s Volleyball team. This semester was one where this journey’s challenging, rigorous, and strength-testing aspects rang true. 

There were so many moments when I felt I had tried to compete too hard. I was incredibly exhausted juggling my work, academic, and personal responsibilities. If I’d learned one thing through growing up in sports, though, it was if I pushed through moments like these, I would only emerge stronger on the other side of them. So, I didn’t have a choice and found a way through. The next semester was expectedly much easier than the previous one. It ended with me walking across the graduation stage with a wide smile and a diploma in my hand after only three years. At that moment, I had proven to myself that I had the power to make any thought or dream a reality. 

That summer, I tried to soak in the glory of not being a student for a few months while also looking forward to furthering my education. I became the Graduate Research Assistant for the Division of Sport Management just before returning to campus for my final year. 

New Beginnings

Starting my first semester in the graduate-level Master of Professional Studies degree in Sports Management program almost felt like my first day in a new life. There were so many new beginnings that occurred all around the same time: a new apartment, job, classes, and a new level Page 14, Volume 4, of schooling. 

It all felt so rewarding, but it didn’t stop there. About a month after the semester started, I was given the opportunity to accept a second job as a stage manager for the Brooklyn Nets. This role was a dream to me, and while it was only part time, it gave me a new outlet in which to direct my competitive nature. At the time, I was competing to work my way toward a full-time position postgrad. Because my competitive focus shifted away from academics, I came face-to-face with college burnout. Experiencing what it was like to work a job that I love, in an industry I had spent years learning about, made the academic side of my life seem less exciting than it had felt previously. I struggled to keep my discipline and motivation in the classroom (I still do as I write this). 

Returning for my final semester felt more underwhelming than any other, but graduation was on the horizon. I just needed to get through to emerge stronger, as I always did. The burnout I endured changed the trajectory of my life postgraduation in a way that I could have never imagined. However, I am happy as it allowed me the time to contemplate all the possibilities that I could create for myself following the completion of my degree. 

Future Plans 

Unlike many of my other colleagues, I have chosen not to walk away from my final semester with a full-time job, nor do I feel any urgency to try to obtain one upon completing my degree. I have spent the past four years of my life heavily focused on just one of my many passions. I feel that now is the time for me to explore and accomplish more of my many other life interests and goals while I’m still young before jumping into a lifelong career.

Luckily, I have the opportunity to continue my part-time position with the Brooklyn Nets and their WNBA team, the New York Liberty, while also allowing myself to take as much time as I need to follow my heart and travel the world. While, again, this isn’t the result I expected, I couldn’t be walking away from the entirety of my college experience feeling any more delighted. 

The past four years have been a majorly transformative period in my life, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t experienced all of the adventures that came along with them. I have proven to myself that I truly can do anything I set my mind to—and that lesson and prize is much greater than any degree/s I could earn.